Monster Muskie Caught--though Not For Long

At long last, Illinois' first 50-inch muskie was boated a week ago at Carlton Lake by an angler who promptly released it after measuring a historic 50 1/2 inches.

"I had no interest in killing that fish," said Micah Tameling of Wood Dale, a veteran muskie hunter who often fishes the storied 77-acre Carlton waters. His noble gesture might have cost him a state record as the fish could not be weighed and verified by state biologists.

Although long regarded as Illinois' most prolific muskie lake because of consistent overstocking by the state, many anglers thought little Carlton was incapable of producing a truly trophy fish. That doubt was put to rest last Saturday when Tameling sank a 10-inch Jackpot topwater lure into the jaws of his monster. Fishing with his brothers Joel and Jesse, and Tim DeJong of Elmhurst, Tameling battled the muskie for 10 minutes before his partners could lift it into the boat.

"We had no net!" Tameling exclaimed. "We'd gone out mainly for bass that day, so we didn't think we'd need a net. I finally got bored with bass fishing and switched to muskie, and that's when I got my strike."

Other muskie anglers in a nearby boat furnished the 60-inch measuring stick that Tameling used to determine the length of his catch. "I carefully measured it from the tip of the snout to the tip of the compressed tail," he said in a voice filled with assurance. "Then we took some pictures and got it back into the water."

He never did measure the girth, but the fish appeared to be too slender to threaten the state record of 37 pounds 13 ounces set last month at Shabbona Lake by Chris Kim of Elk Grove Village. However, Kim's stouter fish was only 48 1/4 inches long. Until Tameling's feat, the longest Illinois muskie had been Charles Book's former record of 49 5/8 inches--and that fish was 4 pounds lighter than Kim's.

"Well, we still don't have a 50-inch state record, but at least we have had one released," said Greg Tichacek, northern fisheries field manager for the Department of Natural Resources. "We sure would have wanted a cast of that fish for display, at least."

Tichacek said he hopes Tameling will fill out a voluntary muskie creel census card "so we can put that fish into our data base. We certainly can see that he gets some recognition--a certificate from Muskies Inc. and a release pin."

Tameling said his largest previous muskie approximated "43 or 44 inches" two years ago on Ontario's Lake of the Woods. He said most of his friends had caught and released Canadian fish in the 40-inch range.